Forced Entry

A letter lay open on the desk before Wang Yuanqiao. The ink had dried, and it had plainly been there for some time.

He stared at it for a long while, then rubbed his brow and let out a long sigh.

An elder beside him could not help asking, "Sect Master, has the Hatred-Severing Sect sent another letter?"

Wang Yuanqiao did not look up. He merely nodded, his voice a little hoarse.

"They want us to withdraw from the ore vein to the west."

The hall fell silent. Several elders exchanged glances, their faces darkening.

A few months earlier, a Golden Blade Sect survey team had discovered a vein of Liyang Stone in a barren mountain west of the Liyang Mountains.

The stone was extraordinarily hard, an excellent material for forging Treasure Weapons. Even a little Liyang Stone powder mixed into an ordinary weapon could raise its hardness and sharpness by an entire level.

The Golden Blade Sect practiced the saber arts, and every disciple carried a saber. Naturally, the discovery had delighted them.

Wang Yuanqiao had immediately ordered the news sealed and dispatched the Sect's elite disciples to begin mining on a large scale.

But after more than a month of excavation, matters had grown complicated.

Deep in the vein, the digging disciples unearthed a great many human bones. Some were black as ink; others were a strange, dark red.

As they dug deeper, they even found several zombies that had not fully decayed. Though the zombies had long since lost the ability to move, the aura lingering on their bodies still sent chills through everyone who came near.

When Wang Yuanqiao heard the news, he was not alarmed. He was overjoyed.

He suspected that what lay beneath the vein was very likely connected to the Ten Thousand Souls